


Where the women go forever

by risinggreatness



Series: Circle 'round the sun [99]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 18:31:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3421133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/risinggreatness/pseuds/risinggreatness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Padmé in the afterlife</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the women go forever

Falling into her mother’s arms is a blessed reprieve. Sobs escape Padmé: ragged, deep from within, though not from sorrow, but relief.

She is free.

( _They are safe. Palpatine only wanted her and his order is filled. Luke and Leia are safe._ )

“Gods be good, you are returned to us,” father strokes her hair as when she was a little girl.

Gods, yes. The Force, yes. Old beliefs join to create new knowledge.

Eyes clearing of tears, Padmé searches their faces and only finds unadulterated joy. It’s been so long and she has had a desperate ache for them every day since and now there are no more days to count, into eternity.

Waves lap at the shore.

\----------

Her first journey is across a desert.

She trudges forward, though no exhaustion bears down, her clothes light and cool against her skin, fluttering in a warm breeze with no true source.

She shades her eyes when she sees a figure on the horizon. A tiny boy runs further into the distant sky and no matter how she tries to catch him, he is never closer.

A shattering sound causes her to whip her head around; there, just as far behind her, stands a tiny girl, immobile.

When she looks back for Luke, he is gone.

Leia does not stay either.

Padmé arrives at her destination when the sky dims; Shmi Skywalker sits by a fire. Wordlessly, Padmé joins her.

“I’ve been watching you a long time,” speaks a voice not quite like Padmé imagined. Warm and loving, yes, but tired. ( _How she sounded, in the end._ )

Padmé leans towards the fire. In the other reality, she would be cold, but here, she only wants a closer look at a woman who she’d come to admire above all others the past five years.

“How did you do it?” is all she can ask.

_How did you find the strength to fight so long and so hard, when all others did was take everything from you?_

“I would say you’ve found your way to do the same.”

“I let my children go. They would have had each other.”

There is an unspoken, selfish ‘me’ in the silence.

“You gave them their lives. You gave others great joy, a debt they will never be able to repay. I may say there is great reward in such unselfishness, but maybe there isn’t.”

Shmi pauses, considers Padmé then takes her hands in hers. There are worlds of difference in them; Padmé’s heart pangs, to see they are really not so far apart in age.

“I wish you could have been there – when the twins were born.”

The calloused hands squeeze tight around her own and Padmé knows now.

She was.

\----------

In accordance with those who come before, Breha finds her way to Padmé.

They walk arm-in-arm in trappings of old gardens, as they might have had if Padmé had found her way to Alderaan without such long shadows following her.

“I’m honored to have known you better through Leia,” she says quietly.

“Stubborn as a jaboon,” Padmé teases; Breha only smiles faintly.

“Poor, motherless girl,” they both think.

\----------

Her parents join her sometimes in watching their grandchildren. A life of singular habit, Padmé only begrudges their presence a little.

“You could not have done better for them,” mother notes.

What about, ‘I could not have done better than them?’ Their families take such pride in them, from Leia’s quick mind to Luke’s quick feet; Padmé swells with the old sin for only herself.

“My children,” she thinks as Luke learns to put things back together.

“My children,” she thinks when Leia heals rifts.

“My children,” she loves.

\----------

When she can bear it, ( _and she must_ ), Padmé watches over Ben and Ahsoka. No substitute for the true ghosts the Jedi may conjure, but perhaps it is for the best.

Ben snaps at imagined specters. From what she can gather from his half of the conversation, they speak the hard truth he would hide from for all eternity.

On the days he fights the absence of her, Padmé feels sorry for him.

Ahsoka doesn’t let herself wallow. Padmé watches as the girl, forced into an unbearable adulthood, rolls death after death off her squared shoulders. ( _Mina’s son is returned to his parents, not a boy, but too hollow to be a man. Padmé does not envy it._ )

“I failed you,” Padmé whispers to Ahsoka, unheard. “But you will make it, I promise.”

She hopes it is not an empty gesture.

\----------

Padmé recognizes them on sight, even if they barely know her.

Tall grass bends in wind as small dust clouds collect.

Automatically, she and Beru reach out in grateful and loving hugs. It is every caress she could not give or receive from Luke from the day he was taken from her.

Owen Lars maintains a safe distance, though unwilling to be too far from his wife.

“A little late, but I am glad we’ve finally met,” Beru notes lightly. ( _The circumstances hardly matter now._ )

“I’m just relieved it was over that damned rebellion of yours,” Owen says a little gruffly.

Yes, the rebellion ensures their boy is free for a time more, even if he hurtles headlong into the crucible.

“We trust Kenobi with him, right?” he asks, uncertainty creeping in, desperate for her promises, even empty.

“Yes. Obi-Wan will put everything down before anything befalls him or sister,” Padmé assures confidently.

And when Padmé finally encircles Owen in her arms, it is a final embrace from Luke.

\----------

It is not difficult to be two places at once here, but the divide over the past days troubles her. Her children’s pain should not be attended to in halves.

Padmé wishes they would rage and scream like she could not when her world was ripped from her, but they do as she did. Go silent and cold and bury pain unseen.

But so close to each other, Padmé recalls the thrumming pulse they provided her. She cannot even fear how dangerous it is, for when they reach for each other’s hands for the first time in nearly twenty years, a great rift in Padmé’s heart fills.

It hasn’t hurt in years, but now it is only a memory.

\----------

“Where is she? Is she alright?”

Obi-Wan must know the answer to the second question, but Padmé will oblige him to see with his own eyes.

Familiar scenes play out for her; she does not need to watch them again. She simply places a hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder. No tears are shed, though he does go brittle.

“I spare myself for her when I can –” she begins, knowing it to be woefully insufficient.

“Let me now,” he begs permission.

Padmé nods.

( _No ghosts for Ahsoka._ )

\----------

Old pragmatism does not abandon Bail in the afterlife.

“It was bound to happen soon; this rebellion catching up with me.”

Padmé frowns sympathetically. Maybe, but such vengeance on a whole system – well, they should have expected no less from Palpatine’s empire.

Looking back to his wife, “Leia shouldn’t blame herself. If she does, I’ll never rest peacefully.”

“She is my daughter; that’s asking quite a lot. She’s your’s.”

They must find peace on their own.

\----------

Luke’s long-standing indifference to her could not be made less painful by the divide of death, but nothing prepares Padmé for the moments when he does remember he had a mother, once.

When Luke and Leia speak of her in the fog of Endor, Padmé does not linger for long. It is not her place; parents are not privy to these conversations.

Luke and Leia part ways. Padmé grieves. ( _Once upon a time, she could dream they would be reunited. They did. Now they undo her wish on their own._ )

Obi-Wan comes to her through the mists.

“Shall we?” he offers his hand to her. She only shakes her head.

Enshrouded in the dark and cold rain, like on Endor, Padmé prays by herself as she feels the telltale wind shift at her back.

Battles will collect casualties and she will see one again soon.

\----------

The scar on Padmé’s palm is as fresh as the day she marked it as her final.

( _Battle scars, birth scars, and only this lone one for rage and grief._ )

Anakin presses a kiss to it; no more blood to be spilt.

It begins to heal.

**Author's Note:**

> See author bio for discussion on this 'verse.


End file.
